Pages

Thursday, 6 May 2010

The essential dilemma

After a seemingly endless barrage of debates, speeches and articles during the weeks of the election campaign, today's front pages of Britain's best selling tabloids neatly encapsulate the dilemma facing the nation as the polls open this morning.

"We face a hard road to rebuild the economy. It will be painful. Whoever leads Britain will need courage, skill, integrity and passion. But we also need someone like Mr Cameron who can see light at the end of the tunnel. Someone with energy and optimism who refuses to believe it always has to be as bad as this. Look around you at the depressing shambles Britain is in.[...] Mr Cameron has spent four years making the Conservatives a modern and caring party that embraces everyone. He has fought a modern and positive campaign."

"Don’t believe a word of Mr Cameron’s patter. He would take us back to the 1980s, an era scarred by poverty and public squalor, a decade when the world looked at Britain, shuddered and turned away. This election’s exposed how little the Conservatives have changed, the same old Tories defending the same old interests.[...] The Tories are itching to start cutting services.[...] The Conservative vision of Britain is not one we share, the so-called Big Society seems merely a marketing wheeze to mask the truth about the unfairness which still drives the Tory party machine."

There are, of course, many other factors to consider, not least the alternatives to the Conservative leader - particularly in Scotland - but in essence the Cameron question represents the essential choice facing the nation.